In June, Major League Baseball began its crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances to doctor baseballs. But will this lead to pitchers making changes on how they approach the game since they are being checked by umpires periodically? PopCulture.com recently caught up with Detroit Tigers pitcher Daniel Norris, who said he’s not worried about the big change by MLB.
“I’m trying to just focus on my game,” Norris said to PopCulture. “It doesn’t affect me personally. I know it might other people, but at the same time, we’re all out there trying to throw as hard as we can and do what we can and at the end of the day, we got to move pitches. I don’t think it’s really going to affect guys here and there. They like to stay stuff about spin rate and everything, but if you’re making your pitches, you’re still going to get guys out.”
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The only pitcher to be punished for foreign substances since the new enforcement was put in place, Hector Santiago of the Seattle Mariners was handed a 10-game suspension last week for possessing a foreign substance on his glove. He was also fined for the incident. As MLB attempts to make the game as fair as possible, Norris is looking to help the Tigers turn things around. They will head into the All-Star Break a few games under .500, and as of Thursday morning, they are 11.5 games out of first place in the AL Central.
“I think that like when you dive into the numbers, we’ve lost a ton of one-run games that have been super close,” Norris said. “With baseball, a one-run game is a matter of just a few plays or a few hits here and there. And so I think without staying stagnant if we just kind of keep doing what we’re doing and progressing every day, good things are going to happen. You know, I think everybody’s working hard. We’re taking early BP, early ground balls, everybody’s trying to get better. I’ve always kind of said… My dad’s always said, if you train hard, good things might happen. So, definitely see that on the horizon for us.”
In October 2020, the Tigers hired AJ Hinch to be the manager. Hinch won a World Series with the Houston Astros in 2017 but was suspended for the 2020 season for violating MLB policies in a sign-stealing scandal. He was fired from the Astros shortly after the suspension.
“AJ has been incredible,” Norris stated. “This is my fourth manager of my career and all of them have been great in their own ways. I couldn’t say a bad thing about it in the managers. I’ve had great relationships with all of them, but I will say that with the AJ I’ve felt I think more of like a deeper personal connection with him.”
